Friday, June 19, 2009

In his new book, "Questioning the War on Terror," Dr. Barrett uses rigorous analysis and just plain common sense to show that Obama voters were right: the War on Terror is a profoundly dubious enterprise. He begins with the observation that Americans are thirty times more likely to die from lightning strikes, and ten times more likely to drown in their bathtubs, than to be killed by terrorists: "Should we declare war against lightning bolts and bathtubs? Should we install PA systems in our bathrooms reminding us that the threat level of bathtub drowning has been raised to orange? Should we create a new Department of Bathtub Security (DBS) empowered to do sneak-and-peak warrantless searches of our bathrooms to make sure that we're using no-slip bath-mats? Should we invade and occupy countries that we falsely blame for bathtub deaths? Would this be any crazier than what we're doing now, allegedly due to the equally insignificant 'terrorist threat'?"

Using the Socratic method, Questioning the War on Terror asks fifty- four hard questions that, taken together, effectively annihilate the central notion on which our post-9/11 political life has been based. It concludes with a list of twenty-two concrete actions that readers can take to end the War on Terror and achieve the change they voted for.